Gruppo Bertone

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The company was based in Grugliasco in northern Italy. Gruppo Bertone was founded as Carrozzeria Bertone in 1912 by Giovanni Bertone. Designer Nuccio Bertone took charge of the company after World War II and the company was divided into two units: Carrozzeria for manufacturing and Stile Bertone for styling. Until its bankruptcy in 2014, the company was headed by the widow of Nuccio Bertone, Lilli Bertone.

In the first decades of the 20th century, cars were not common. The road traffic was dominated by horse-drawn carriages and the coaches built by the young Bertone were particularly regarded[by whom?] for their accuracy, quality and solidity. In 1914, Giuseppe Bertone, nicknamed "Nuccio", the second son of Giovanni Bertone, was born. This nickname later became known[by whom?] as the signature to Nuccio, one of the greatest Italian style masters in the world. The outbreak of the first world war triggered a major crisis of the young Italian industrial sector and heavily affected Giovanni Bertone, who was forced to close his company.

At the end of the First World War, Bertone's business restarted and expanded its activities, and began focusing on the automotive sector. In 1920, a new plant was opened near the Monginevro 119 in Turin. Twenty people were on the payroll. One year later, the first important contract was signed to the company. This was a torpedo styled body based on the SPA 23S chassis. Then, the FIAT "501 Sport Siluro Corsa," the first of a family of models that would characterize the brand in the years to come, was designed. With that, the high performance sport car was born.

During the 1920s, Turin was represented as one of the worldwide centers of excellence of the car industry. Bertone was sitting on the hub of it and formed partnerships with almost all the manufacturers of the day. Giovanni Bertone began doing bodywork on the Fast, Chiribiri, Aurea, SCAT and Diatto chassis. The most important and long lasting relationships were those with the two biggest Turin manufacturers were FIAT and Lancia.

Vincenzo Lancia realised straight away that Giovanni Bertone was an outstanding skilled craftsman with a great future ahead of him. Affectionately nicknaming him "Bertunot", he commissioned Bertone to create complete car bodies, above all for the limited series that the companies of the day were not always equipped to manufacture. This was Bertone's first opportunity to carry out limited production of special cars on standard mechanical bases, and was the beginning of a great industrial experience.

These are very exciting years for Bertone himself, and also for the evolution of industrial style and design. The car body shapes are slowly but continuously changing, angular shapes begin to fade, wings start to be joined together. Giovanni Bertone produced torpedo and saloon bodies for FIAT and Lancia, and also for Itala, Diatto and SPA. He also worked on commissions for private customers eager for exclusivity. Alongside sports models like the 1928 Ansaldo 6BS, Giovanni Bertone also designed luxury cars like the Fiat 505 limousine and the Itala 51S, both in 1924. He later designed the Lancia Lambda VIII Series in 1928.

Despite the fact that the depression of 1929 had brought many Turin carmakers to their knees, Giovanni Bertone's shrewd management allowed the company to carry on creating cars with great appeal. In 1932, Giovanni designed the imposingly elegant Lancia Artena, which was produced until 1936. In 1933; the following year, a corner stone event for the Carrozzeria Bertone occurred. This was that Nuccio Bertone, who was nineteen at the time, officially began working in his father's company. In the same period, Bertone began working on commercial vehicles, and as the business grew, new premises were needed. The company moved to Corso Peschiera 225. Gruppo Bertone now had fifty members of staff.

In 1934, Bertone created the Fiat 527S Ardita 2500, a turning point in car design, with some incredible new details such as the stunning front headlights with fairing along the bonnet. With the Ardita a new kind of style was created, destined to take off towards the end of the decade, with FIAT and Lancia models astounding for their day. Examples were the 'six window' FIAT 1500 Aerodinamica, the opulent Lancia Aprilia Cabriolet and the novel Fiat 1500 Torpedo, with structural features that had never been seen before, such as the fold-away hood which stowed away entirely inside the car. With Giovanni's bold innovations and elegant creations, he was highly appreciated by car experts and fans.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the car market experienced a sudden, drastic downturn. Almost all the bodywork manufacturers, including Bertone, reacted to the crisis by turning to military vehicles of various kinds. The company created vehicles such as the Bertone ambulance on a Lancia Artena base. It was a hard time. The demand was scarce. Raw materials and labour was lacking. Military orders where difficult to fulfill. But production did not stop in the Corso Peschiera plant, some luxurious Lancia Aprilia are manufactured as well as the extremely elegant long chassis Fiat 2800 cabriolet, the only one of its kind, built on commission for race driver and motoring journalist Giovanni Lurani Cernuschi.

After the war, as the long slow process of reconstruction began in Europe, the big industrial companies gradually scaled up their production levels, and the bodyworks got back to work. During these difficult years Nuccio Bertone created cars like the Lancia Aprilia Cabriolet and the Fiat 1100 Stanguellini racing car, which were precursors to some of the design trends in the following decade.

At the end of the 1940s, Nuccio Bertone turned to racing, at the wheel of a number of different cars, including a Fiat 500 Barchetta, which Nuccio built for himself. At the end of the decade the meeting with Vittorio Stanguellini led to the creation of a coupé with a Fiat 1100 chassis which got a high public appreciation..

The 1950s brought in the first orders from countries other than Italy, in particular from MG and Bristol Cars Limited in 1952. The following year, Nuccio Bertone designed the prototype for the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, which was presented at the 1954 Turin Motor Show. A production of 1000 was originally planned, but in the end nearly 40,000 vehicles were made between 1954 and 1965. The car ceased production in 1965.

The relationship between Bertone and Alfa Romeo reached its creative peak with the Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica (BAT) concept cars which pushed back the boundaries of car design and aerodynamics: the BAT 5 in 1953, the BAT 7 in 1954 and the BAT 9 of 1955. Research into aerodynamics culminated in the production of the Abarth 750 Record in 1956, built on a Fiat 600 chassis and tested on the high speed track at Monza. This Abarth set an impressive ten world records, including doing 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) at an average of 156.36 km/h and covering 10,125.26 km in 72 hours.

In 1957, the company expanded to start the production of the NSU Sport Prinz. The factory in Corso Peschiera could not cope with the forecasted production volumes. Construction work began in Grugliasco on the outskirts of Turin, for a new plant which became operative in 1959, with a workforce of 550. At the end of the 1950s, Bertone came up with some sports berlinetta which were to make history, such as the Giulietta Sprint Special, the Aston Martin DB2/4 and the Maserati 3500 GT.

The 1960s were the years of the Italian-style GT. Nuccio Bertone came up with five variations on the theme which would always be dear to his heart, in the shape of five extremely racy GT models: the Alfa Romeo 2600 Sprint, in coupé and cabriolet versions, two Ferrari 250 GTs, one named 'Wax' after the commissioning client, and the other for the his personal use, the Aston Martin DB4 GT 'Jet' and the Maserati 5000 GT. At the same time, two new industrial partnerships were getting under way, with the work on the SIMCA 1000 Coupé and the BMW 3200 CS limited series, as was the important, but unfortunate ASA 1000, better known as the "Ferrarina", or "little Ferrari" (as the project originated with Enzo Ferrari), which, despite the high expectations of the public, never made it to the automobilemarket.

The Iso Rivolta GT 300, the Iso Rivolta GT 340 and the Iso Grifo were also created in the 1960s. Nuccio Bertone also designed a prototype cabriolet of the latter and a racing version known as the A3C. The Grifo years were also the years of the Corvair Testudo, driven personally by Nuccio Bertone to the Geneva Motor Show in 1963. The following year saw the Alfa Romeo Canguro, followed in 1965 by the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT, the rightful heir of the Giulietta Sprint.

In 1965, Carrozzeria Bertone experienced a major turning-point, with the launch of the Fiat 850 Spider. The commercial success of this model led Nuccio Bertone to increase the company's production capacity to 120 units per day (between 1965 and 1972 nearly 140,000 were produced, the great majority of which were sold in the United States). With the Fiat 850, the company took a giant leap forward in terms of production volumes, from the 13,000 bodies produced in 1966 to nearly 30,000 in 1968, an increase of 40 percent.

The end of the 1960s saw the beginning of the partnership with Ferruccio Lamborghini that was destined to make history in the car world. The first vehicle to come out of this was the Lamborghini Miura, which presented at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show, which reinvented the high performance coupé design concept. The Miura was followed by the Marzal in 1967 and the Espada in 1968. In the same period, two other coupés appeared: the Alfa Romeo Montreal and the Fiat Dino Coupé, both out in 1967. Astounding, ground-breaking cars, inventing their own language for the design of the future: these were Nuccio Bertone's trademarks. At the Paris Motor Show of 1968, he presented the Carabo concept car, based on an Alfa 33 chassis.

By 1970, Bertone had a workforce of 1,500 staff, and the Grugliasco factory covered an area of 267,000 square metres (2,870,000 sq ft). The partnership with Lamborghini led to the development of the Lamborghini Espada, by 1973 known as the world's fastest four-seater. The design was inspired by an earlier concept, the Jaguar Pirana. After his initial success with the Espada he went on to design the Lamborghini Jarama and the Lamborghini Urraco. With the Stratos Zero prototype, which built on a Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF base, Bertone came to represent a new point of reference in modern art, as well as on the international car design scene. The Stratos Zero, which was presented at the 1970 Turin Motor Show, evoked a timeless blend of architecture, sculpture and industrial design.[citation needed] The following year, with some of the Zero's styling cues as a starting point, Bertone created the Lancia Stratos Stradale, a compact coupè destined mainly for the racing circuit, and which went on to win numerous victories in world rally championships.

In 1972, at the age of 88, Giovanni Bertone died. In that year, as a tacit tribute to the company's founder, the Maserati Khamsin and the Fiat X1/9 were released. The latter, foreshadowed by the Runabout concept car, was the heir of the 850 Spider, and went on to enjoy the same runaway commercial success. Based on the Fiat 128 chassis but with a mid-rear-engine layout, the X1/9 was in production from 1972 to 1988, with 160,000 units manufactured.

In the same year, the company began working for Volvo on the 264 TE. The Volvo262 C, which was presented at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show, was entirely manufactured by Bertone, from the assembly of the basic body to the fitting of the mechanical components and the road trials. This procedural turning point had a big role in transforming the company, which was now set to become a car manufacturer in its own right.

From the start of the 1980s, the Fiat Ritmo Cabrio and the Fiat X1/9 were produced and sold directly under the Bertone brand, meaning that the company was now responsible not only for production but also for the sales network and after-sales assistance for the two models.

In 1982, Nuccio Bertone turned out another important design, the Citroën BX. After entering into a joint-venture with Volvo in 1985 the company began production of the Volvo 780, a two-door saloon entirely created by Nuccio Bertone, from the formal design of the model to the full production cycle.

Without abandoning its commitment to exploring the new languages of car design, Bertone entered the 1990s with its focus on technological innovations. Capturing the attention of public and experts alike at the 1992 Turin Motor Show was the aggressively futuristic Blitz barchetta, a showcar which featured an electric engine and avant-garde construction solutions. The barchetta had a tubular chassis in special steel integrated with sandwich-structuredfiber glass panels, bodywork in composite materials and carbon interiors.

In 1993 the Opel Astra Cabrio and the Fiat Punto Cabrio begun production, with the entire production cycle for both cars at the Grugliasco factory; assembly of the bodywork, mechanical components integration, paintwork and fittings. A complete production cycle, ending with the final testing process, which is carried out according to the procedures and standards of the commissioning companies.

In 1994, continuing the company's research into low environmental-impact vehicles, Bertone presented the Zero Emission Record (ZER), a futuristic reinterpretation of the Abarth 750 Record. Expressly conceived and created to yield the highest performance levels in the electric car sector, the ZER (which has a Cx of 0.11) set the world one-hour-long distance record (199.822 km), and broke the 300 km/h barrier, setting the new world speed record for electric cars (with a top speed of 303.977 km/h).

In 1994, Gruppo Bertone became the first manufacturer in Italy to be awarded the ISO 9001 quality certification. Meanwhile, Nuccio Bertone did not turn his back on a past dedicated to bodywork and continued to design working prototypes; the Karisma in 1994, a four-seater berlinetta on a Porsche base, the Kayak in 1995, a coupé on a Lancia K base, the Slalom 'coupé de chasse' on an Opel Calibra base, and the Enduro 4x4, a SUV on a Fiat Brava floorpan.

On 26 February 1997, on the evening of the Geneva Motor Show, Nuccio Bertone died, "one of the greatest coachbuilders of the century, and international Maestro of Italian style" in the words of Fulvio Cinti, motoring journalist and car historian. His widow Lilli Bertone took over management of the company.[citation needed]

While in the past car manufacturers had paid more attention to the engineering of a car than to its design, by the 1990s they had realized the importance of design to their brand's success and were increasingly bringing more of the creative work in house.[citation needed] This even applied to supercar manufacturers, who in the past had been a major client of the Italian design consultancies (carrozzeria). While Chinese and Indian manufacturers provided some work, this too decreased as once they gained confidence they too established their own in-house design studios. Despite these difficulties Bertone obtained some specialist manufacturing projects and continued with design consulting.

However, by 2009, the worsening financial situation caused Bertone to sell its Grugliasco plant, along with its manufacturing activities to FIAT.[1] Bertone underwent a major restructuring and became a fully integrated service company in the automotive, transportation and industrial design sectors. By then, Bertone workforce had reduced to roughly 300, mainly engineers and designers, with a capacity of 300,000 engineering hours per year, which allowed it to manage up to four prototype projects per year, from first style drafts to the effective manufacturing of the prototype. The financial turmoil however continued, leading it to sell off some of its treasured collection of concept cars in 2011.[1][2][3]

In May 2013 the licence rights of the historic brand were granted by Bertone Cento to Bertone Design,[4] a company established in Milan, led by architect Aldo Cingolani [5] with the aim of a reviving the brand in various fields, such as architecture, industrial design and fashion. Bertone Design also operates in the railway sector. Its most recent projects are the Frecciarossa 1000[6] Trenitalia and the regional train "Jazz" [7] produced by Alstom; both will go into service in 2015.